Definition
A distiller is any person, firm, or corporation who produces distilled spirits through any of the following activities: distilling or manufacturing spirits; brewing or making mash, wort, or wash fit for distillation or for the production of spirits; separating alcoholic spirit from any fermented substance by evaporation or any analogous process; or maintaining a still while also keeping mash, wort, or wash on the premises. The legal definition is deliberately expansive — it captures not only those who complete the distillation process but also those who undertake preparatory steps toward it.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): A person who distills, especially alcoholic spirits by distillation; a person who owns, works in, or operates a distillery; also a device or apparatus used for distilling.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): One who distills; especially, one who extracts alcoholic liquors by distillation. Also the condenser of a distilling apparatus.
The gap between common and legal meaning is meaningful at the margins. Ordinary usage requires that a distiller actually complete the distillation process — someone who only brews mash or maintains a wash would not ordinarily be called a distiller. The legal definition deliberately closes this gap, treating preparatory production activities as sufficient to trigger classification as a distiller and the regulatory obligations that follow. A researcher who reads historical tax or licensing records through the lens of common meaning may undercount the number of legally regulated distillers in a given period.
Common Confusion
DISTILLER vs. RECTIFIER: Anderson's explicitly flags this comparison. A rectifier processes or redistills already-produced spirits — purifying, blending, or otherwise altering them. A distiller produces spirits from raw fermented materials. The distinction mattered significantly under federal excise tax law, where distillers and rectifiers faced separate licensing and tax regimes. Historical sources sometimes use the terms loosely; verify which regulatory category applies before drawing conclusions from licensing records or tax rolls.
Why It Matters in Research
The legal definition of distiller was shaped almost entirely by federal excise taxation, particularly the Internal Revenue laws consolidated in the Revised Statutes of the United States (§ 3247 and surrounding provisions). Researchers working in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century materials will encounter this statutory definition repeatedly, and it controls meaning in that context regardless of how state law or ordinary usage would classify a given operation.
The breadth of the definition — especially the mash-plus-still clause — was designed to prevent evasion. Someone who kept a still on premises but claimed to be only a brewer of mash fell squarely within the federal definition. This matters when reading enforcement records, revenue agent reports, or prosecution files: the charge of operating as an unregistered distiller could attach to conduct that the accused might describe as something short of distilling.
During Prohibition, the regulatory architecture built around the licensed distiller category did not disappear — it was suspended and then restructured. Post-repeal sources reactivate the pre-Prohibition definitional framework substantially intact, so researchers moving across that historical divide should not assume the definition changed merely because the legal landscape did.
State licensing and taxation frameworks often tracked the federal definition but were not required to do so. A firm qualifying as a distiller under federal law may have been classified differently — or not regulated at all — under contemporaneous state law. Cross-referencing federal and state sources is essential for any transactional or compliance history.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's and Anderson's are in close agreement, both drawing on the Revised Statutes of the United States as the controlling source. Black's quotes § 3247 nearly verbatim; Anderson's paraphrases the same provision while extending it explicitly to firms and corporations — a practical clarification reflecting the business reality that distilling operations were often conducted by entities rather than individuals.
Anderson's adds two useful elements that Black's omits: the explicit comparison to rectifier (signaling that the distinction was legally significant and prone to confusion), and a note on "illicit" distilling as the terminology for unlawful production. The latter is a useful pointer for researchers working with criminal records or newspaper accounts, where "illicit distilling" and "moonshining" appear as functional synonyms in different registers.
Neither source addresses the administrative and licensing apparatus in detail — the bonded warehouse system, the tax stamps, or the registration requirements that gave the definition its operational bite. For that layer, researchers must go beyond the dictionary entries to the revenue statutes and Treasury Department regulations directly.
Jurisdictional Note
The core definition of distiller for regulatory and tax purposes was a creature of federal law throughout the period covered by the historical sources. State law created parallel licensing obligations but generally did not displace the federal definition. Post-Prohibition, the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) administers federal definitions; state alcohol control boards may apply their own classifications for licensing purposes, which can diverge in edge cases.